Alternative Fuelshttp://www.businessinsider.com/category/alternative-fuels
en-usTue, 31 Mar 2015 18:35:39 -0400Tue, 31 Mar 2015 18:35:39 -0400The latest news on Alternative Fuels from Business Insiderhttp://static3.businessinsider.com/assets/images/bilogo-250x36-wide-rev.pngBusiness Insiderhttp://www.businessinsider.com
http://www.businessinsider.com/scientists-have-created-the-worlds-first-hydrogen-fuel-cell-tram-2015-3China has created the world's first hydrogen fuel cell streetcarhttp://www.businessinsider.com/scientists-have-created-the-worlds-first-hydrogen-fuel-cell-tram-2015-3
Wed, 25 Mar 2015 15:19:00 -0400Benjamin Zhang
<p><img src="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/5512f5bfecad042f70adc589-962-540/screen%20shot%202015-03-25%20at%201.50.11%20pm.png" border="0" alt="China Hydrogen Tram Car"></p><p>Chinese cities have become increasingly known more for pollution than for the new skyscrapers that have transformed skylines over the past two decades of development. </p>
<p>This month, Chinese mass transit took a step toward alleviate the pollution problem. The world's first hydrogen-powered streetcar rolled off a production line at Qingdao Sifang Co. The tram will be able to reach speeds as <a href="http://www.railwaygazette.com/news/news/asia/single-view/view/csr-unveils-hydrogen-fuel-cell-tram.html" target="_blank">high as 43 mph</a>. Range will be 62 miles, after which the tram will take 3 minutes to refuel.</p>
<p><span>Hydrogen fuel cells generate electricity by creating a chemical reaction using hydrogen and oxygen. </span><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">The only byproduct is water. This means that the 380-passenger, hydro-powered tram will be able to provide pollution-free public transportation in China's cities. </span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">The Sifang hydrogen tram is part of the Chinese government's plans to boost rail technology. According to </span><a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-03-25/china-s-hydrogen-powered-future-starts-in-trams-not-cars" target="_blank">Bloomberg</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">, the plan calls for $32-billion in investment over a 5-year period. China would also construct an addition 1,200 miles of tram tracks during this time. </span></p>
<p>Although hydrogen fuel cell technology has not been commonly employed in public transit. Carmakers such as General Motors, Honda, Hyundai, and Toyota have all invested in this alternative means of propulsion.</p>
<p>Critics of hydrogen fuel cells often point out that although the technology itself emits only water, hydrogen requires conventional means of power generation to produce.</p>
<p><span>In addition to the hydrogen tram, state-owned Sifang also intends to build traditional streetcars, including licensed Skoda models from the Czech Republic.</span></p>
<div><div>
<iframe width="800" height="600" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/o9QAV_orYsc?rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
</div></div>
<p class="embed-spacer"></p><p><strong>SEE ALSO:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/aston-martin-dbx-electric-4x4-geneva-motor-show-2015-3" >If James Bond needed a stylish SUV, it would look like this Aston Martin concept car</a></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/scientists-have-created-the-worlds-first-hydrogen-fuel-cell-tram-2015-3#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> <p>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/massive-escalator-10-floors-chongqing-china-2015-2">This massive outdoor escalator in China is 10 stories high</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/sc/electric-cars-why-should-you-buy-an-ev-2014-9Why Electric Cars Will Eventually Dominate The Roadshttp://www.businessinsider.com/sc/electric-cars-why-should-you-buy-an-ev-2014-9
Wed, 03 Sep 2014 10:00:00 -0400Sponsor Post
<p><em><a href="http://www.mbusa.com/mercedes/vehicles/class/class-B" target="_blank"><img style="float:right;" src="http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/53f763426bb3f77e2b297145-507-380/2014-b-class-ev-gallery-009-goe-d-1.jpg" border="0" alt="2014 B CLASS EV GALLERY 009 GOE D"></a>This post is sponsored by <a href="http://www.mbusa.com/mercedes/vehicles/class/class-B" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">Mercedes-Benz</a>.</em></p>
<p>Not long ago, it wasn't that easy to spot an electric vehicle. They seemed rare, like something only movie stars, aging hippies, and Silicon Valley entrepreneurs drove.</p>
<p><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">B</span><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">ut now that EVs are becoming popular, it's fair to wonder: What's it like to own one? </span><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">We asked veteran automotive journalist and author </span><a href="http://www.jimmotavalli.com/" target="_blank">Jim <span>Motavalli</span></a><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">&nbsp;how EVs are similar to, and different from, gas-powered vehicles. <span>Motavalli</span>&nbsp;has been writing about alternative vehicles since the mid-1980s, and in his assessment, EVs are "not only just as good as gas-powered cars — in many cases, they're better."</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;"><span>Motavalli</span>&nbsp;helped us answer some common questions that people in the market for an EV might have, and made the case for why they will eventually "dominate the roads."</span></p>
<p><strong>1. Is it difficult to charge an EV?</strong></p>
<p>"EV owners tend to be very enthusiastic about their cars," says <span>Motavalli</span>. They track their charge level and often keep them plugged in at night in their home garages. They also take advantage of more than 8,000 available public charging stations,&nbsp;<a href="http://www.afdc.energy.gov/locator/stations/results?utf8=%E2%9C%93&amp;location=&amp;filtered=true&amp;fuel=ELEC&amp;owner=all&amp;payment=all&amp;ev_level1=true&amp;ev_level2=true&amp;ev_dc_fast=true&amp;radius_miles=5" target="_blank">according to the U.S. Department of Energy</a>. About&nbsp;<a href="http://www.afdc.energy.gov/locator/stations/results?utf8=%E2%9C%93&amp;location=&amp;filtered=true&amp;fuel=ELEC&amp;owner=all&amp;payment=all&amp;ev_level1=true&amp;ev_level2=true&amp;ev_dc_fast=true&amp;radius_miles=5" target="_blank">180 more stations are also being added every month</a>, usually in public parking garages and employee parking lots.&nbsp;</p>
<p><span>Motavalli</span>&nbsp;notes that the "infrastructure cost for setting up a charging station is comparatively low, at around $10,000," so finding a charging station will only get easier as time goes on. He adds that the previous lack of charging infrastructure is now "yesterday's problem."</p>
<p><strong><a href="http://www.mbusa.com/mercedes/vehicles/class/class-B" target="_blank"><img class="center" src="http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/53f61cc56bb3f7d672f34f81-1049-786/d34668.jpg" border="0" alt="D3_4668"></a>2. How far can I drive on one charge?</strong></p>
<p>Worrying about how far you can drive in an EV is common — so common in fact there's even a term for it:&nbsp;<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Range_anxiety" target="_blank">range anxiety</a>. On a full charge, an EV like the Mercedes B-Class can&nbsp;whip down the road for 87 miles. B-Class owners who have the optional Range Plus feature can also get an additional 15 miles beyond that when the feature is activated while charging.&nbsp;</p>
<p><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">But bear in mind that Americans drive, on average, just 40.7 miles a day, with a median driving range of only 31.6 miles, according to one </span><a href="http://www.theevproject.com/cms-assets/documents/111387-842261.sae.pdf" target="_blank">study</a><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">. Also remember that the math in favor of the EV gets even better when you take into account that electric vehicle owners average 27.9 miles between consecutive charging "events" with a median distance of only 19.8 miles. That means an EV can handle most daily chores.</span></p>
<p>Still, a lot of people do suffer from range anxiety. Potential EV owners might be worrying about the few annual road trips they'll take, rather than those hundreds of short hauls to work and the mall. As <span>Motavalli</span>&nbsp;says, "People don't think rationally when they buy cars," and every owner has a different set of requirements that need to be taken into account at the time of purchase. Other potential owners might have very long commute, or maybe they live in rural areas without any nearby charging stations. The best way to think about an EV may be as an excellent second, daily-use car.</p>
<p><strong>3. What's it like to drive an EV?</strong></p>
<p>Unlike other cars, EVs don't ramp up to full power. As soon as you turn them on, they have 100% of their torque. "They take off with great speed and alacrity," <span>Motavalli</span>&nbsp;says. "That's why they're so good in drag racing. They just take off, with a feeling of effortless power." That means when<span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">&nbsp;you're merging onto the highway, an EV seems to glide into full speed. They're also great for hills, because they don't have that slight lurch as they shift into gear.</span></p>
<p><strong>4. How easy are EVs to maintain?</strong></p>
<p>EV maintenance costs are lower. "You don't have to worry about timing belt replacements, transmission maintenance, fuel injectors, gasket replacements, oil leaks, exhaust systems, and so on," <span>Motavalli</span>&nbsp;says. And because most of the braking in an EV is done magnetically — to capture the energy of the moving car and recharge the battery — the wear-and-tear on the braking system is less. <span><br></span></p>
<p>Over time, EVs are cheaper to maintain, at about $600 to $700 per year (whereas gas-powered cars come in well over $2,000 and scale up from there). Purchasing an electric vehicle also qualifies you for a $7,500 federal tax credit. And since time is money, we'll point out that in some states EVs can drive in the HOV lane and avoid traffic jams.</p>
<p><strong>5. What's the future for electric cars?</strong></p>
<p>If <span>Motavalli</span>&nbsp;is right, someday we'll be seeing electric cars everywhere. "EVs are going to dominate the roads," he claims, "and most of the heads of the auto companies agree with me on this. It'll take time — decades even — but sooner or later, EVs are going to take over the highways." It doesn't hurt that&nbsp;<a href="http://www.technologyreview.com/view/517146/are-electric-vehicles-better-for-the-environment-than-gas-powered-ones/" target="_blank">EVs are better for the environment than gas-powered cars</a>,&nbsp;even when their electricity comes from coal-fired power plants.</p>
<p><strong>6. When will everyone be driving an electric car?</strong></p>
<p>According to <span>Motavalli</span>, the electric-vehicle future is going to ramp up slowly "but it's going happen." Some experts go even farther than <span>Motavalli, on this: they</span>&nbsp;argue that the real argument for electric cars is not the environmental one. It's just that they're better designed, more reliable, and more efficient than gas-powered cars.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.mbusa.com/mercedes/vehicles/class/class-B" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"><strong>Learn more about the Mercedes B-Class Electric Drive.</strong></a></p>
<p>Find out <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/sponsor-posts">more about Sponsored Content</a>.</p><p><strong>SEE ALSO:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/sc/mercedes-b-class-electric-drive-tesla-2014-8" >Mercedes Has A New Electric Car That's Fast, Roomy, And Powered By Tesla</a></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/sc/electric-cars-why-should-you-buy-an-ev-2014-9#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/turkey-oil-to-biodiesel-2013-11Don't Throw Out That Precious Deep Fried Turkey Oilhttp://www.businessinsider.com/turkey-oil-to-biodiesel-2013-11
Fri, 29 Nov 2013 15:27:14 -0500Walter Kurtz
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static6.businessinsider.com/image/5298f81a69bedddc6fd2177f-480-/fried-turkey-oil.jpg" border="0" alt="fried turkey oil" width="480" /></p><p>For those who fried your turkey in oil yesterday, here is an idea. Depending on where you live, you may be able to get the used cooking oil recycled into biofuel. Here is an example from a couple of counties in the Chicago area:</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><a href="http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2013-11-28/news/ct-talk-cooking-oil-recycling-20131128_1_used-oil-clean-fuel-thames-water" target="_blank">Chicago Tribune</a>: - On Saturday, 19 suburbs in DuPage and Cook counties will collect used cooking oil to convert it to clean-burning biofuel. School and Community Assistance for Recycling &amp; Composting Education, or SCARCE, a Glen Ellyn-based environmental education nonprofit, organized the collection with oil recyclers Green Grease Environmental and Chicago Biofuels.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">Recycling cooking oil is a "win-win-win," SCARCE founder Kay McKeen said. "It saves residents and cities money, keeps water cleaner and generates clean fuel."</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">Though she hopes more communities will begin offering year-round oil recycling, McKeen said she decided to start with Thanksgiving because so many families deep-fry their turkeys, each using about 4 gallons of oil.</p>
<p>Even though these types of projects remain fragmented across the US, the efforts to manufacture more biofuels are paying off. The latest data show biodiesel production at record levels.</p>
<p><img src="http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/5298f7bf6bb3f7e415d21776-525-400/biodiesel-1.jpg" border="0" alt="biodiesel" width="800" height="610" /></p>
<p>And while it may take decades for biofuels and other alternatives to rival fossil fuels (<a href="http://soberlook.com/2013/11/5-facts-about-energy-sources.html" target="_blank">see post</a>), your Thanksgiving turkey oil should still help.</p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/turkey-oil-to-biodiesel-2013-11#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/spanish-to-run-cars-on-human-waste-2013-6A Spanish Town Is Planning To Run Its Cars On Human Waste Biofuelhttp://www.businessinsider.com/spanish-to-run-cars-on-human-waste-2013-6
Fri, 28 Jun 2013 13:52:00 -0400Antony Ingram
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static6.businessinsider.com/image/51cdc5926bb3f76e7f000006-480-/all-gas-biofuel-plant-1.jpg" border="0" alt="all gas biofuel plant" width="480" /></p><p>Humans are a lot like cars.</p>
<p>No, seriously--in order to make us work, we need fuel. <br /><br />That fuel is our food, which we metabolize in order to function, and anything not required by the body we produce as waste. Sounds familiar, right?</p>
<p id="itxthook1w">Conveniently, that waste can then also be used to fuel our cars, albeit after a few more processes have taken place. That's what is happening in one Spanish town right now, where sewage from the town's residents is being used to produce a green biofuel.</p>
<p>Yep, it's another article about <a href="http://www.greencarreports.com/news/1074705_will-poop-power-electric-cars-sure-will-at-denver-zoo" target="_blank">poop-powered cars!</a></p>
<p>While our bodies might be done with certain substances after we've used them in our body's chemical processes, bacteria in our dung (and the dung of other creatures, for that matter) can produce useful byproducts such as methane, or to fertilize algae used to create biofuel.</p>
<p>The latter is what Spanish firm All-gas is doing in the town of Chiclana, <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/26/us-spain-bioenergy-idUSBRE95P0JG20130626?feedType=RSS&amp;feedName=environmentNews" target="_blank">Reuters</a> reports.</p>
<p>A facility just outside the town uses the waste water and southern Spanish sunlight to grow algae, then used to produce biofuel.</p>
<p>It's a small part of Spain's $15.7 million plans to research algae-based biofuel, in an effort to pursue alternative energies and reduce the country's dependence on imported oil.</p>
<p>With Spain in the midst of record unemployment and huge budget deficits, the cost-effectiveness of the process is of high priority. Luckily, All-gas says its biofuel project is over $2.6 million cheaper to set up and run than a conventional sewage plant, and is gaining plenty of interest from several small towns in Spain.</p>
<p id="itxthook2w">At the moment, the small existing plant is still in early stages, having harvested its first algae crop last month. By 2015, the plant aims for 3 tons of annual production from 10 hectares of land, enough to fuel around 200 cars or 10 city garbage trucks per year. It won't be replacing regular petroleum products for some time then, but as a low-cost and low-carbon alternative to fueling a city fleet on regular gasoline, it still has its place.</p>
<p>The plans are small at the moment, but with enough land and interest from other cities there's little to stop the project expanding further.</p>
<p>And the best thing is, local residents need do no more than remember to flush...</p>
<p><em>Follow GreenCarReports on&nbsp;<a href="http://www.facebook.com/GreenCarReports" title="Facebook - Green Car Reports" rel="nofollow">Facebook</a>,&nbsp;<a href="http://twitter.com/greencarreports" target="_blank" title="Twitter - Green Car Reports" rel="nofollow">Twitter</a>,&nbsp;<a href="http://instagram.com/greencarreports" target="_blank" title="Instagram - Green Car Reports">Instagram</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href="https://plus.google.com/108702855478337248034/posts?partnerid=gplp0" target="_blank">Google+.</a></em></p><p><strong>SEE ALSO:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/classic-cars-race-in-peking-to-paris-rally-2013-6?op=1#ixzz2XXCGHzHq" >Epic Photos Of Classic Cars Racing From Beijing To Paris</a></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/spanish-to-run-cars-on-human-waste-2013-6#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/how-nasa-tests-new-flower-based-biofuel-2013-3Here's How NASA Is Testing A New Biofuel Made From Flowershttp://www.businessinsider.com/how-nasa-tests-new-flower-based-biofuel-2013-3
Mon, 11 Mar 2013 16:46:59 -0400Alex Davies
<p>One way to deal with the high cost of jet fuel and its impact on the atmosphere is to use biofuels.</p>
<p>Dutch carrier <a class="hidden_link" href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/klm">KLM</a> is now running flights between New York and Amsterdam <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/klm-running-biofuel-flights-from-jfk-to-amsterdam-2013-3">using biofuel made from used cooking oil</a>, and <a class="hidden_link" href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/nasa">NASA</a> is testing its own mix.</p>
<p>To see how a 50-50 blend of conventional JP-8 jet fuel and an alternative fuel made from parts of camelina flowers impacts engine performance and emissions into the atmosphere, NASA used it to fill up a DC-8 jet.</p>
<p>This photo was taken by a HU-25 Falcon, which flies behind the DC-8, outfitted with more than a dozen instruments to analyze the soot and gases the jet leaves behind.</p>
<p><img src="http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/513e318669beddd511000003-903-504/733274main_dscn0215_1600-1200.jpg" border="0" alt="NASA's DC-8 biofuel testing in flight" width="903" height="504" /></p><p><strong>SEE ALSO:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/bombardier-jet-to-compete-with-airbus-boeing-2013-3" >Bombardier Reveals A Passenger Jet To Challenge Airbus And Boeing</a></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/how-nasa-tests-new-flower-based-biofuel-2013-3#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/flex-fuel-cars-to-lower-gas-prices-2012-12The Crazy Plan To Force Gas Prices To Drop To $2 A Gallon http://www.businessinsider.com/flex-fuel-cars-to-lower-gas-prices-2012-12
Mon, 10 Dec 2012 17:03:00 -0500Suzanne Goldenberg
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/50c5f77eecad048747000007-400-/traffic-gridlock-stuck-not-moving-sandy-nyc-2012-bi-dng.jpg" border="0" alt="traffic, gridlock, stuck, not moving, sandy, nyc, 2012, bi, dng" width="400" /></p><p>Eyal Aronoff identifies himself on his business card as an "oil addiction therapist".</p>
<p>He's got an unconventional detox method, claiming he can get Americans off oil by making it cheaper to fill up their cars.</p>
<p>The software entrepreneur is a co-founder of the <a href="http://www.fuelfreedom.org/" title="">Fuel Freedom Foundation</a>, a new organisation trying to make the case for cutting America's oil consumption &ndash; both foreign and domestic.</p>
<p>He argues &ndash; along with backers including James Woolsey, director of the CIA under Bill Clinton &ndash; that if America cuts its use of oil in half over the next 10 years, prices on the global market would drop below $50 a barrel because of reduced demand.</p>
<p>Americans would pay about $2 a gallon to fuel up &ndash; or about half as much as they pay now.</p>
<p>The foundation proposes to reduce America's use of oil by widespread adoption of other liquid fuels, allowing motorists to fill up their cars interchangeably with petrol, ethanol, natural gas or methanol, at prices well below those prevailing today. The foundation also rejects the idea of subsidising cleaner fuels.</p>
<p>The idea, which applies only to transport not electricity generation, basically turns conventional environmental thinking on its head.</p>
<p>And it will be interesting to see how much traction Aronoff and fellow tech millionaire and co-founder Yossie Hollander get for their free-market environmental solutions.</p>
<p>With Barack Obama announcing he is on the look-out for new, bipartisan approaches to climate change, Aronoff visited Washington DC last month with Woolsey to try to find support in the White House and Congress for rethinking the ban on using methanol in cars.</p>
<p>Aronoff argues that current environmental politics are self-defeating. The failure to find an immediate and competitively price replacement for liquid fuels was limiting support for environmental powers.</p>
<p>Outside of a handful of big cities, public transport does not exist in America. People rely on their cars to get to work, and if the price of petrol goes up they suffer.</p>
<p>It also allows the oil lobby to try and cast all environmental regulations as expensive job killers. "The American Petroleum Institute and the oil lobby, they keep blaming environmental regulations for high prices. As the price rises the base of the environmental movement becomes readier to buy the story that the price is rising because of environmental regulations," he said.</p>
<p>Instead, Aronoff argues that driving down the price of oil would make it less viable to mine non-conventional oils from the Alberta tar sands or in the deep-water drill sites in the Gulf of Mexico, and the pristine waters of the Arctic.</p>
<p>"When the price is high, it unlocks about two-thirds of the world's carbon that is currently locked in tight shale, in tar sands, in deep seas, in places that are very, very hard to get to &ndash; in the Arctic," Aronoff said. "When oil reaches between $85-$120 a barrel all of them become viable."</p>
<p>The key to reducing oil prices, however, goes far beyond a transition to plug-in cars or hybrids.</p>
<p>"You don't just cut demand through greener cars or anything else because that won't do it," Woolsey said.</p>
<p>Instead, the men argued that the government needs to push car makers to manufacture plug-in or hybrids that are also flex-fuel cars, enabling them to recharge their batteries on methanol, ethanol, or petrol. They want petrol stations to stock alternate fuels.</p>
<p>"Our dream would be to enable existing cars; for you to take your car to a shop where they would maybe reprogramme your car, make a couple of modifications in your fuel system," said Aronoff. "If we can take the existing fleet and enable conversion for very, very cheap to fuel flexibility then the impediments to enter the market will go away, and the impediment for the new cleaner fuels will go away," Aronoff said.</p>
<p>At the moment, however, Aronoff's idea remains a dream. The Environmental Protection Agency expressly forbids the burning of methane in car engines, and it will take substantial public pressure to rewrite regulations and get car manufacturers to switch production. But Aronoff figures he has got about two years to give it a try.</p>
<!-- Guardian Watermark: internal-code/content/400804275|2012-12-10T12:37:06Z|455765811aac5480a09598ccc3a76a7713a09e29 -->
<p>This article originally appeared on <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/dec/10/oil-prices-climate-change-car">guardian.co.uk</a></p>
<p><img class="nc_pixel" src="http://pixel.newscred.com/px.gif?key=YXJ0aWNsZT1kYzhhZTU2MWE5N2NhMjM0NTU1ZDBhNmM3NWFmNzQ2NSZvd25lcj01ZGYyMDgwZWQ3Y2QxN2VjMjVhYWU2ZTkwYWU2MzNmMiZub25jZT01NjVjMjA3OS1kOGExLTRiNjctYTlmMy04OTEwNTNlNDE0MjQmcHVibGlzaGVyPThjMDBmYmVlNjFkNWJjZjBjNjA5MmQ4YjkyZWJiY2Ex" border="0" alt="" width="1" height="1" /></p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/flex-fuel-cars-to-lower-gas-prices-2012-12#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/clean-energy-sources-to-reduce-effects-of-climate-change-2012-10Ten Ways We Can Help Keep NYC From Drowning Under Waterhttp://www.businessinsider.com/clean-energy-sources-to-reduce-effects-of-climate-change-2012-10
Wed, 31 Oct 2012 13:39:00 -0400Dina Spector
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/509157ccecad04960a000008-400-/manhattan-future.png" border="0" alt="Manhattan Future" width="400" /></p><p>The best scientific evidence shows that global climate change is caused by burning fossil fuels (oil, coal, and natural gas), which emit carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.</p>
<p>These greenhouse gases act like a bubble around the Earth, trapping heat in, and in turn, causing temperatures to rise on the planet's surface. This phenomenon can be observed through shrinking glaciers, thawing of permafrost, rising sea levels and, yes&nbsp;<strong>stronger storms</strong>.&nbsp;</p>
<h2><a href="/clean-energy-sources-to-reduce-effects-of-climate-change-2012-10#wave-snakes-use-the-natural-up-and-down-motion-of-waves-to-generate-electricity-1">See how we can beat climate change &gt;</a></h2>
<p>Superstorm Sandy brought unprecedented levels of flooding to areas across the Eastern seaboard.&nbsp;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/breezy-point-aerial-photo-2012-10">New York City</a>&nbsp;and the <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/photos-jersey-shore-hurricane-sandy-2012-10">Jersey Shore</a> were particularly hard hit.&nbsp;In Manhattan, a record-breaking storm surge reached 14 feet, shuttering <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/hurricane-sandy-photos-of-new-york-subway-flooded-2012-10">one of the largest transit systems in the world</a>.</p>
<p>Although climate change did not cause the storm, a growing number of <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/climate-change-linked-to-hurricanes-2012-10">researchers say that climate change increases the severity of hurricanes</a>, including stronger storm surges like the one in Manhattan. This on top of rising sea levels, which will leave many cities, including New York, partially underwater, means just one thing: To save our cities, we need to slow climate change.&nbsp;</p>
<p>To moderate the effects of climate change we must start by lowering greenhouse gas emissions, which involves investing in clean and renewable energies. &nbsp; &nbsp;</p>
<p>Renewable energy is energy that comes from natural resources such as sunlight, wind, tides and geothermal heat. Unlike oil, these energy sources won't run out (although some are highly unpredictable) and carbon-neutral, so they don't contribute to climate change.</p>
<p>We aren't just talking wind turbines and solar panels, though. People around the world are developing innovative and sometimes strange ways to decrease their dependence on oil and gas.</p><h3>Wave Snakes use the natural up-and-down motion of waves to generate electricity.</h3>
<img src="http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/4f285e0c6bb3f76c48000004-400-300/wave-snakes-use-the-natural-up-and-down-motion-of-waves-to-generate-electricity.jpg" alt="" />
<p><p><strong>Location: </strong>Portugal</p>
<p>The 460-foot long, British-made floating tubes represent the world's first commercial-scale wave-power stations.</p>
<p>The snake-like power farms, which were first launched off the northern coast of Portugal in 2008 from the town of Agu&ccedil;adoura, are an original concept in clean energy design.</p>
<p>Using the natural up-and-down motion of waves, the stations are able to convert enough electricity to <a href="http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17090-sea-snake-generates-electricity-with-every-wave.html">power more than 1,000 homes</a>.</p></p>
<br/><br/><h3>The Wind Blimp is equipped with spinning blades to catch wind and generate energy.</h3>
<img src="http://static6.businessinsider.com/image/4cace7357f8b9a8a78360000-400-300/the-wind-blimp-is-equipped-with-spinning-blades-to-catch-wind-and-generate-energy.jpg" alt="" />
<p><p><a href="http://www.magenn.com/">Magenn Power Inc.</a> developed its first wind blimp prototype in 2008. The MARS (Magenn Air Rotor System) is essentially an extremely lightweight wind turbine that is anchored to the ground by a tether. Helium is used to lift the blimp, which is equipped with spinning blades to catch wind, generating energy. The electricity is then transferred by the tether to either a power grid or batteries.</p>
<p>MARS has several advantages over other wind systems due to its size, weight, and the ability to operate in very light wind speeds. The blimp is transportable, easily deployed, and well-suited for off-site or remote locations. The floating wind turbine also has the potential to produce electricity at <a href="http://www.magenn.com/products.php">under $.20 per kWh versus $.50 cents to $.99 cents per kWh for diesel</a>.</p></p>
<br/><br/><h3>Archimede is the first solar power plant to use molten salts as a heat transfer fluid to store energy from the sun.</h3>
<img src="http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/4f285d1c69bedd194600002c-400-300/archimede-is-the-first-solar-power-plant-to-use-molten-salts-as-a-heat-transfer-fluid-to-store-energy-from-the-sun.jpg" alt="" />
<p><p><strong>Location:</strong> Syracuse, Sicily.</p>
<p>On July 14, 2010, Italian utility Enel unveiled "Archimede," the world's first solar power plant to use molten salts as a heat transfer fluid. The system contains 30,000 square meters (320,000 square feet) <a href="http://www.physorg.com/news198345931.html"> of parabolic mirrors that concentrate solar rays onto 5,400 meters</a> of high heat-resistant pipes that carry the fluid molten salt. The fluid is then collected in special tanks and used to produce steam, which eventually contributes to electricity generation.</p>
<p>The salts &mdash; a mixture of sodium and potassium nitrate &mdash; are an extremely efficient heat transfer mechanism. Unlike synthetic oils used in traditional concentrating solar plants, molten salt can work at much higher temperatures (up to 550&deg;C instead of 390&deg;C). The salts store enough energy to keep the plant generating power at night or on cloudy days, which is a common limitation of many renewable energy sources.</p></p>
<br/><br/><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/clean-energy-sources-to-reduce-effects-of-climate-change-2012-10#this-is-the-worlds-largest-biomass-power-plant-running-solely-on-chicken-poo-4">See the rest of the story at Business Insider</a> http://www.businessinsider.com/zerod-muscle-car-is-made-from-recycled-parts-no-carbon-footprint-2012-9This 600 HP Muscle Car Is Actually Good For The Planethttp://www.businessinsider.com/zerod-muscle-car-is-made-from-recycled-parts-no-carbon-footprint-2012-9
Wed, 12 Sep 2012 12:09:00 -0400Alex Davies
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static5.businessinsider.com/image/5051d93b69beddcb2c000008/zerod-muscle-car-green.jpg" border="0" alt="zero'd muscle car green" /></p><p>This muscle car is based on the <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/ford" class="hidden_link">Ford</a> XR Falcon, but there's a world of difference between it and the 1967 model. Not only does the new creation, called the ZERO'D, pump out 600 hp, it does with with almost no negative impact to the environment.</p>
<p>The ZERO'D is the creation of Australian Mick Fabar, who owns Green Homes Australia and Mick Fabar Constructions, both of which offer environmentally friendly construction services.</p>
<p>The goal of the ZERO'D was to "create a street machine that had ideally a zero effect on the environment in its design, construction and when being driven," Fabar says.</p>
<p>All of the external body panels are second-hand and the leather for the interior comes from scrap pieces that would normally be discarded. The new parts are few and far between, including the glass, radiator and intercooler.</p>
<p>Bond University in Queensland documented the construction of the ZERO'D (11 months to design, seven months to build) and verified that it produced zero carbon footprint.</p>
<p>To keep the impact of the ZERO'D to a minimum, Fabar runs the 7.3 liter, V8 engine (also recycled) on B20 fuel, a mix of 20 percent biodiesel and 80 percent petrodiesel. The former is made from renewable resources like soy; the latter is produced using oil.</p>
<p>The ZERO'D was unveiled in April at the MotorEx "Greatest Rides on Show" event in Sydney, and will be showcased at the Australian International Motor Show next month.</p>
<p><img src="http://static6.businessinsider.com/image/5051d94deab8eaca1400000a/zerod-muscle-car-green.jpg" border="0" alt="zero'd muscle car green" width="618" height="412" /></p>
<h2><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/worst-fuel-economy-in-america-2012-6">Now see the cars with the worst fuel economy in the country &gt;</a></h2>
<p>[Via <a href="http://www.autochunk.com/3330/2012/09/12/ford-xr-falcon-based-zerod-muscle-car-from-recycled-parts-is-green-inside-and-out/">Autochunk</a>]</p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/zerod-muscle-car-is-made-from-recycled-parts-no-carbon-footprint-2012-9#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/japanese-toiletmaker-methane-powered-motorcycle-2012-8The Top Japanese Toiletmaker Has Built A Motorcycle Fueled By Animal Wastehttp://www.businessinsider.com/japanese-toiletmaker-methane-powered-motorcycle-2012-8
Thu, 30 Aug 2012 09:08:48 -0400Rob Wile
<p>Agence France-Presse has the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6IYApvhRz1E">story</a> of Japanese toiletmaker TOTO's latest promotional stunt: a motorcycle powered by methane trapped from animal waste.</p>
<p>Methane-powered generators are praised for their environmental friendliness and have become <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/animal-waste-energy-2012-5">popular among farmers</a>.&nbsp;</p>
<p>Here's TOTO's own promo for the vehicle: <iframe width="560" height="315" frameborder="0" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/ThWEVMfuwSY"></iframe></p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/japanese-toiletmaker-methane-powered-motorcycle-2012-8#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/how-algae-could-be-the-biofuel-of-the-future-2012-7This Little Green Plant Could Be The Biofuel Of The Futurehttp://www.businessinsider.com/how-algae-could-be-the-biofuel-of-the-future-2012-7
Fri, 27 Jul 2012 12:14:00 -0400Shlomo Sprung
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/5012ab0b6bb3f71c0600000e-620-465/algae-biofuel.jpg" border="0" alt="Algae biofuel" width="620" height="465" /></p><p></p>
<p class="p1">For decades, scientists have been trying to harness tiny plants called algae to make fuel. This algae-based fuel could be a viable alternative to the traditional petroleum-based fuel we use today, studies have shown.</p>
<h2 class="p1"><a href="/how-algae-could-be-the-biofuel-of-the-future-2012-7#uc-san-diego-built-these-huge-ponds-to-cultivate-algae-and-show-how-feasible-it-is-to-turn-algae-into-biofuel-1">Click here to see how algae is converted into biofuel &gt;</a></h2>
<p class="p1">These algae are a huge group of microorganisms that grow naturally over the world, in many different environments &mdash; some examples are seaweed (a multicellular form) and pondscum (single-celled algae). Like other plants, algae use the energy from the sun to create sugars, which they live off of. Some of them contain a high amount of fatty molecules, similar to vegetable oils, that can be converted into <span>biodiesel</span>. &nbsp;</p>
<p class="p1">Although algae produces some carbon dioxide when burned, unlike fossil fuels, it's carbon dioxide that the algae take in while they are growing. This is great, because when algae farms grow huge lakes and vats of algae to be turned into biofuels, they actually suck the greenhouse gas out of the air.</p>
<p class="p1">Algae has many other benefits. Unlike corn for ethanol or soybeans for <span>biodiesel</span>, algae can be cultivated in ponds or even tubes in a fluid containing vitamins, minerals and everything else it needs to grow &mdash; it doesn't need soil or fresh water to grow. Huge vats of algae can <a href="http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/08/110810141253.htm">produce more energy per hectare than any land crop can</a>.</p>
<p>The University of California at San Diego has been at the forefront of this algae biofuel movement over the last year. The center&nbsp;<a href="http://algae.ucsd.edu/spreading-the-word/press-kit.html">grows algae</a> to show how commercially viable and revolutionary the process is.</p>
<p><strong><em>Note- The slideshow was corrected for photo and factual errors on 7/30/12.</em></strong></p><h3>UC San Diego built these huge ponds along with corporate partner Carbon Capture to cultivate algae and show how feasible it is to turn algae into biofuel.</h3>
<img src="http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/5012ab6eeab8eafd57000022-400-300/uc-san-diego-built-these-huge-ponds-along-with-corporate-partner-carbon-capture-to-cultivate-algae-and-show-how-feasible-it-is-to-turn-algae-into-biofuel.jpg" alt="" />
<p><p>Source: <a href="http://algae.ucsd.edu/spreading-the-word/press-kit.html">UC San Diego Center For Algae Biotechnology</a></p></p>
<br/><br/><h3>These white buckets you see out front are 800-liter ponds used to test out the feasibility of growing algae in different regions. There are 320 mililiters of fuel extracted for each of these ponds. </h3>
<img src="http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/5012ac09ecad041d5a000000-400-300/these-white-buckets-you-see-out-front-are-800-liter-ponds-used-to-test-out-the-feasibility-of-growing-algae-in-different-regions-there-are-320-mililiters-of-fuel-extracted-for-each-of-these-ponds.jpg" alt="" />
<p><p>Source: <a href="http://algae.ucsd.edu/spreading-the-word/press-kit.html">UC San Diego Center For Algae Biotechnology</a></p></p>
<br/><br/><h3>These microscopic chains of cyanobacteria (a simple ancestor of algae) produce fuel that could offer a sustainable energy source for the future. </h3>
<img src="http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/5012ad5b6bb3f7690a00000c-400-300/these-microscopic-chains-of-cyanobacteria-a-simple-ancestor-of-algae-produce-fuel-that-could-offer-a-sustainable-energy-source-for-the-future.jpg" alt="" />
<p><p>Source: <a href="http://algae.ucsd.edu/spreading-the-word/press-kit.html">UC San Diego Center For Algae Biotechnology</a></p></p>
<br/><br/><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/how-algae-could-be-the-biofuel-of-the-future-2012-7#it-seems-almost-crazy-to-think-that-these-tiny-dots-of-algae-can-be-turned-into-biofuel-but-the-oil-is-extracted-from-these-tiny-organisms-4">See the rest of the story at Business Insider</a> http://www.businessinsider.com/these-alternative-fuel-cars-wont-become-bricks-like-a-tesla-2012-2These Alternative Fuel Cars Won't Become Bricks Like A Teslahttp://www.businessinsider.com/these-alternative-fuel-cars-wont-become-bricks-like-a-tesla-2012-2
Wed, 22 Feb 2012 14:36:05 -0500Travis Okulski
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/4ee232c069bedde73d000008/tesla.jpg" border="0" alt="tesla" /></p><p>Earlier today we learned that <strong>Tesla's</strong> cars can <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/the-tesla-roadster-can-become-a-100000-brick-2012-2">effectively turn into bricks if the battery becomes completely discharged</a>. And the repair is not inexpensive; the fix will cost around $40,000 each time.</p>
<p>This got us to thinking: what if you still want to have an alternative fuel car but do not want the risk of a pricey repair if the vehicle is sitting for a while?</p>
<p>Luckily, there are a number of alternative fuels, some mainstream and some more unique, that are available to power a vehicle.</p>
<p>Some of these will come from the factory ready to go while others may require some modifications to hit the road.</p><h3>Diesel Power</h3>
<img src="http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/4f2832a2eab8ea034800000f-400-300/diesel-power.jpg" alt="" />
<p><p>Diesel is a common choice and perhaps one of the most convenient.</p>
<p>The fuel is available at nearly any gas station and these cars can achieve outstanding mileage scores.</p>
<p>In the past, diesel had a negative stigma for a bad smell and dirty emissions. The latest generation of diesel fuel gets rid of the black smoke and bad smells, but they still have a great noise and the prodigious amounts of torque.</p></p>
<br/><br/><h3>EREV</h3>
<img src="http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/4eea5c8969bedd471900000a-400-300/erev.jpg" alt="" />
<p><p>An Extended Range Electric Vehicle (EREV) is another way to ensure you will not be stranded.</p>
<p>From a political standpoint, the Volt is a very controversial vehicle. There is also a heady debate regarding the pricing of the car.</p>
<p>However, it can go up to 40 miles on a charge and will then turn on the engine. But in most cases, the engine is only charging the battery, not powering the wheels. The engine charges the battery. When the fuel runs out for the engine, just take it to a gas station and hit the road again.</p>
<p>It is entirely possible that some people will never need to put fuel into their Volts.</p>
<p>As a first generation of the technology, of course it will be more expensive and there will be doubters. But in the long run, the Volt might just be able to succeed.</p></p>
<br/><br/><h3>EV</h3>
<img src="http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/4f2332356bb3f7d93f00000a-400-300/ev.jpg" alt="" />
<p><p>Yes, the Tesla Roadster is an EV.</p>
<p>However, "bricking" is not a known fault with the Nissan Leaf or other EVs that are on the roads right now.</p>
<p>The Leaf works just fine for short runs around town to the grocery store or to grab friends at the airport.</p>
<p>Pricing for the Leaf comes in around $28,000 after the tax credits for electric cars are applied. And with more inexpensive battery technology than the Tesla, repair costs will not cost nearly $40,000.</p></p>
<br/><br/><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/these-alternative-fuel-cars-wont-become-bricks-like-a-tesla-2012-2#steam-4">See the rest of the story at Business Insider</a> http://www.businessinsider.com/presenting-the-alternative-energy-matrix-2012-2Presenting The Alternative Energy Matrixhttp://www.businessinsider.com/presenting-the-alternative-energy-matrix-2012-2
Fri, 10 Feb 2012 09:19:00 -0500The Oil Drum
<p>Breathe, Neo. I&rsquo;ve been running a marathon lately to cover all the major players that may provide viable alternatives to fossil fuels this century. Even though I have not exhausted all possibilities, or covered each topic exhaustively, <em>I</em>am exhausted. So in this post, I will provide a recap of all the schemes discussed thus far, in matrix form. Then Do the Math will shift its focus to more of the &ldquo;what next&rdquo; part of the message.</p>
<p>The primary &ldquo;mission&rdquo; of late has been to sort possible future energy resources into boxes labeled &ldquo;abundant,&rdquo; &ldquo;potent&rdquo; (able to support something like a quarter of our present demand if fully developed), and &ldquo;niche,&rdquo; which is a polite way to say puny. In the process, I have clarified in my mind that a significant contributor to my concerns about future energy scarcity is not the simple quantitative scorecard. After all, if it were that easy, we&rsquo;d be rocking along with a collective consensus about our path forward. Some comments have asked: &ldquo;If we forget about trying to meet our total demand with one source, could we meet our demand if we add them all up?&rdquo; Absolutely. In fact, the abundant sources technically need no other complement. So on the abundance score alone, we&rsquo;re done at solar, for instance. But it&rsquo;s not that simple, unfortunately. While the quantitative abundance of a resource is key, many other practical concerns enter the fray when trying to anticipate long-term prospects and challenges&mdash;usually making up the bulk of the words in prior posts.</p>
<p>For example, it does not much matter that Titan has enormous pools of methane unprotected by any army (that we know of!). The gigantic scale of this resource makes our Earthly fossil fuel allocation a mere speck. But so what? Practical considerations mean <a href="http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2011/10/stranded-resources/" title="Do the Math: Stranded Resources">we will never grab this energy store</a>. Likewise, some of our terrestrial sources of energy are super-abundant, but just a pain in the butt to access or put to practical use.</p>
<p>In this post, we will summarize the ins and outs of the various prospects. Interpretation will come later. For now, let&rsquo;s just wrap it all up together.</p>
<div class="more">
<h3>The Matrix</h3>
<p>Would you like to know what the matrix is? Okay. I&rsquo;ll tell you&mdash;in a bit. For each of the major energy hopefuls I have discussed on Do the Math, I characterize their various attributes in a three-tier classification: adequate (<span style="color: #008000;">green</span>); marginal (<span style="color: #ffcc00;">yellow</span>); or insufficient (<span style="color: #ff0000;">red</span>)&mdash;possibly a showstopper. The scheme is qualitative, and I am sure some will disagree with my assignments. Before I go any further, let me say that I will not entertain comments griping about why I made a certain square the color I did. I won&rsquo;t have time to respond at that level, given that there are 200 colored boxes in the matrix. But the beauty is, you can change the matrix <em>any way you see fit</em> and make your own custom version. Go buy some crayons today!. The matrix I&rsquo;ve created is not without its biases and subjectivity. Whose would be?</p>
<p>Okay, I&rsquo;ll keep the suspense going a bit by describing the fields.</p>
<p><strong>Abundance</strong>: This is essentially the &ldquo;abundant,&rdquo; &ldquo;potent,&rdquo; and &ldquo;niche&rdquo; classification scheme reflected in the preceding posts. <span style="color: #008000;">Green</span> means that the resource can in principle produce far more power than we currently use and keep it up for many centuries. <span style="color: #ff0000;">Red</span> means a bit-player at best. <span style="color: #ffcc00;">Yellow</span> is the stuff that can be useful, but is incapable of carrying the full load&mdash;not that we require everything to do this. We can tolerate a mix of of items, but will not get far by mixing reds together.</p>
<p><strong>Difficulty</strong>: This field tries to capture the degree to which a resource brings with it large technical challenges. How many PhDs does it take to run the plant? How painful is it to maintain or keep churning? This one might translate into economic terms: difficult is another term for expensive.</p>
<p><strong>Intermittency</strong>: <span style="color: #008000;">Green</span> if rock-steady or there whenever we need it. If the availability is beyond our control, then it gets a yellow at least. The possibility of going without for a few days earns a <span style="color: #ff0000;">red</span>.</p>
<p><strong>Demonstrated</strong>: I don&rsquo;t mean on paper, and I don&rsquo;t mean a prototype that exhibits some of the technology. To be <span style="color: #008000;">green</span>, this has to be commercially available today, and providing useful energy.</p>
<p><strong>Electricity</strong>: Can the technology produce electricity? Most of the time, the answer is yes. Sometimes it would make no sense to try. Other times, it is seriously impractical.</p>
<p><strong>Heat</strong>: Can the resource produce direct heat? Yellow if only through electric means.</p>
<p><strong>Transport</strong>: Does the technology relieve the liquid fuels crunch? Anything that makes electricity can power an electric car, earning a yellow score. Liquid fuels are <span style="color: #008000;">green</span>. Some may get tired of the broken record in the descriptions that follow that a particular resource does not help transportation, wanting to shout &ldquo;electric cars, fool&rdquo; every time I say it. But our large-scale migration to electric cars is not in the bag. They may remain too expensive to be widely adopted. Meanwhile, this does not help air travel or heavy transport.</p>
<p><strong>Acceptance</strong>: Is public opinion (I can really only judge U.S. attitudes) favorable to this method? Will there likely be resistance&mdash;whether justified or not?</p>
<p><strong>Backyard?</strong>: Is this something that can be done domestically, in one&rsquo;s backyard or small property, managed by the individual?</p>
<p><strong>Efficiency</strong>: Over 50% gets the <span style="color: #008000;">green</span>. Below about 10% gets <span style="color: #ff0000;">red</span>. It&rsquo;s not the most important of criteria, as the abundance score incorporates efficiency expectations. But we will always view low efficiency negatively.</p>
<p>Okay, enough holding out&mdash;here&rsquo;s the matrix.</p>
<p><img src="http://static6.businessinsider.com/image/4f3517d06bb3f77303000063/oil-drum-feb-12-b.png" border="0" alt="Oil Drum Feb '12 b" /></p>
<center></center>
<p>Yellow boxes tend to deserve explanation. It is usually clear why something would swing red or green, but yellow often has several things tugging at it. If <span style="color: #008000;">green</span> boxes are given a <span style="color: #008000;"><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/1" class="hidden_link">+1</a></span> score, yellow boxes zero, and <span style="color: #ff0000;">red</span> boxes <span style="color: #ff0000;">&minus;1</span>, adding the boxes with equal weight yields the scores on the right, by which measure the table is sorted: best to worst. The only place I cheated was to give D-D fusion a &minus;2 for difficulty. It&rsquo;s the hardest thing on the list, given our decades of massive effort invested to date on D-T fusion, while D-D is too hard to even attempt.</p>
<p>Now, equal weighting on all ten criteria is boneheaded. But the assessment is imprecise enough not to warrant a more elaborate weighting scheme. I do not stand firm behind the order that results, and am half-tempted to monkey with weighting schemes until a more preferred order emerges. But I would be cooking the books to further match my preferences. Feel free to weight any way you see fit, and change anything else while you&rsquo;re at it. Just remember. No griping.</p>
<h3>Fossil Fuels, Compared</h3>
<center><center><img src="http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/4f35177369beddd91f00005e/oil-drum-feb-12.png" border="0" alt="Oil Drum Feb '12" /></center></center>
<p>Note that <strong>conventional fossil fuels</strong>, matrixed-out above, score <span style="color: #008000;"><em>green in almost every category</em></span>, except&mdash;unfortunately&mdash;abundance. The efficiency is high for direct heating (most often natural gas), and middling for electricity or transport. Coal gets no points for transportation, and natural gas is of limited use here (although the bus I&rsquo;m riding as I type this is powered by natural gas, so I can&rsquo;t entirely nix its transportation capability). All things considered, <em>all</em> of the fossil fuels get a score of 7 or 8. Note the <strong>striking gap</strong> we face between fossil fuels and their alternatives, topping out at a score of 5. One might ding the fossil fuels a point or two for their greenhouse gas contributions, closing the gap a bit. None of the options in the alternatives matrix are intrinsic carbon emitters.</p>
<h3>Quick Lessons</h3>
<p>Looking at some of the main trends, <strong>very few</strong> options are both <strong>abundant and easy</strong>. Solar PV and solar thermal qualify. A similar exclusion principle often holds for abundant and demonstrated/available. There is a reason why folks (myself included) like solar.</p>
<p><strong>Intermittency</strong> mainly plagues <strong>solar</strong> and <strong>wind</strong> resources, with mild inconvenience appearing for many of the natural sources.</p>
<p><strong>Electricity is easy to produce</strong>. We have loads of ways to do it, and are likely to pick the easiest/cheapest. We won&rsquo;t necessarily get far down the list if we&rsquo;re covered by things at the top end (assuming my rankings have any validity and some economic correlation).</p>
<p><strong>Transport is hard</strong>. Concerns over <a href="http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2011/11/peak-oil-perspective/" title="Do the Math: Peak Oil Perspective">peak oil</a> played a <em>huge</em> role in making me sit up to pay attention to our energy challenges. Electric cars are the most obvious way out, but don&rsquo;t do much for heavy shipping by land or sea, and leave airplanes on the ground.</p>
<p>Few things face serious barriers to <strong>acceptance</strong>: especially when energy scarcity is at stake.</p>
<p>A <strong>few options</strong> are available for the <strong>homestead</strong>. A passive solar home with PV panels, wind, and some method to produce liquid fuels on site would be a dream come true. Here&rsquo;s hoping for artificial photosynthesis!</p>
<p>The missing category here is <strong>cost</strong>, although difficulty may be an imperfect proxy. As a result, some of the high-scoring options may more be costly than we&rsquo;d like. Actually, some of the lowest-scoring options are the costliest! If you&rsquo;re expecting that we&rsquo;ll replace fossil fuels <em>and</em> do it on the cheap, you might as well learn to bawl on the floor kicking and pounding your fists, tears streaming. This is our predicament. We have to buck up and deal with it, somehow.</p>
<h3>Individual Discussion</h3>
<p>For each topic, the link at the beginning points to a more complete discussion on Do the Math. Here, I just briefly characterize each resource in relation to the matrix criteria.</p>
<p><a href="http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2011/12/wind-fights-solar/">Solar PV</a>: Covering only 0.5% of land area with 15% efficient PV panels provides the annual energy needs of our society, qualifying solar PV as abundant. It&rsquo;s not terribly difficult to produce; silicon is the most abundant element in Earth&rsquo;s crust, and PV panels are being produced globally at 25 GW peak capacity per year (translating to 5 GW of average power added per year). Intermittency is the Achilles Heel of solar PV, requiring storage solutions if adopted at large scale. Solar PV produces electricity directly, which <em>could</em> be converted to heat or transport. Most people do not object to solar PV on rooftops or over parking areas, or even in open spaces (especially desert). I&rsquo;ve got some on my garage roof as we speak (with storage), so they&rsquo;re well-suited to individual operation/maintenance. Clocking in at an efficiency of 15%, don&rsquo;t expect PV to vastly exceed this ballpark.</p>
<p><a href="http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2012/01/basking-in-the-sun/">Solar Thermal</a>: Achieving comparable efficiency to PV, but using more land area, generating electricity from concentrated solar thermal energy automatically fits in the abundant category&mdash;though somewhat more regionally constrained. It&rsquo;s relatively low-tech: shiny curved mirrors tracking on (often) one axis, heating oil or other fluid to run a plain-old heat engine. Intermittency can be mitigated by storing thermal energy, perhaps even for a few days. Because a standard heat-engine follows, fossil fuels can supplement in lean times using the same back-end. A number of plants are already in operation, producing cost-competitive electricity&mdash;and heat if anyone cares. As with so many of the alternatives, transportation is not directly aided. Public acceptance is no worse than for PV, etc. But don&rsquo;t expect your own personal solar thermal electricity plant.</p>
<p><a href="http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2012/01/basking-in-the-sun/">Solar Heating</a>: On a smaller scale, heat collected directly from the sun can provide domestic hot water and home heating. In the latter case, it can be as simple as a south-facing window. Capturing and using solar heat effectively is not particularly difficult, coming down to plumbing, insulation, and ventilation control. Technically, it might be abundant, but since it is usually restricted to building footprints (roof, windows), I take it down a notch. There will be lean days, but my friends in Maine do not complain about their solar heating comfort (with occasional propane backup). Solar heating is useless for electricity or transport, but has no difficulty being accepted and almost by definition is a backyard-ready technology.</p>
<p><a href="http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2011/12/how-much-dam-energy-can-we-get/">Hydroelectric</a>: We have seen that super-efficient hydroelectric is doomed to remain a small player (in the rubric that we maintain today&rsquo;s energy consumption levels). It&rsquo;s the low-hanging fruit of the renewable world, and has therefore already seen large-scale development. It has seasonal intermittency (typical capacity factor for a hydro plant is 40%), does not directly provide heat or transport, and can only rarely be implemented personally, at home. Acceptance is fairly high, although silting and associated dangers&mdash;together with habitat destruction&mdash;do cause some opposition to expanded hydroelectricity.</p>
<p><a href="http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2011/11/the-biofuel-grind/">Biofuels from Algae</a>: I was somewhat surprised to see this entry rank as highly as it did in my admittedly unsophisticated scoring scheme. Because it captures solar energy&mdash;even at &lt; 5% efficiency&mdash;the potential scale is automatically enormous. But it&rsquo;s not easy, at present. Dealing with slime will bring challenges of keeping the plumbing clean, possible infection in a genetic arms race with evolving viruses, contamination by other species, etc. At present, we don&rsquo;t have that magic algal sample that secretes the fuels we want. Heady talk of genetic engineering pledges to solve these problems, but we&rsquo;re simply not there yet and cannot say for sure that we will get there. Otherwise, the ability to provide transportation fuel is the big draw. Heat may also be efficiently produced, though electricity would represent a misallocation of liquid fuel. Can it be done in the backyard? I could imagine a slime pond in the yard, but care and feeding and refining the product may be prohibitively difficult.</p>
<p><a href="http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2012/01/warm-and-fuzzy-on-geothermal/">Geothermal Electricity</a>: This option makes sense primarily at geological hotspots, which are rare. It will not scale to be a significant part of our entire energy mix. Aside from this, it is relatively easy, steady, and well-demonstrated in many locations. It can provide electricity, and obviously direct heat&mdash;although far from heat demand, generally. It provides no direct help on transportation. Objections are slim to non-existent. I don&rsquo;t think houses tend to be built on the hotspots, so don&rsquo;t look for it in a backyard near you.</p>
<p><a href="http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2011/12/wind-fights-solar/">Wind</a>: Wind is a sensible option that I imagined would float higher in the list than it did. It&rsquo;s neither abundant nor scarce, being one of those options that can provide a considerable fraction of our present needs under large-scale development. It&rsquo;s pretty straightforward, reasonably efficient, and demonstrated the world over in large farms. The biggest downside is its intermittency. It will not be unusual to have a few days in a row with little or no regional input. Like so many other things, electricity is naturally produced, while heat and transport is only available via electricity. I sense that objections to wind are more serious than for many other alternatives. Windmills are noisy and tend to be located in prominent places (ridge-tops) where they are extremely visible and scenery-altering. You can&rsquo;t hide wind in a bowl, or you end up hiding from the wind at the same time. Another built-in conflict emerges on wind-rich coastlines, where many like to take in unspoiled scenery. Small-scale wind is viable in your own backyard.</p>
<p><a href="http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2011/11/the-biofuel-grind/">Artificial Photosynthesis</a>: A very appealing future prospect for me is artificial photosynthesis, combining the abundance of direct solar with the self-storing flexibility of liquid fuel. Intermittency is thus eliminated to the extent that annual production meets demand: storage of a liquid fuel for many months is possible. The dream result of a panel sitting on your roof that drips liquid fuel could provide both heating and transportation fuel. In a pinch, one could also produce electricity this way, but what a waste of precious liquid fuel, when we have so many other ways to make electricity! The catch is that it doesn&rsquo;t exist yet, that it may never exist, and that feeding it the right ingredients and processing/refining the fuel may eliminate the backyard angle. Still, we all have to have <em>something</em> to gush over. For some, it&rsquo;s thorium and for others it&rsquo;s fusion, etc. This one excites me by its potential to satisfy so many purposes.</p>
<p><a href="http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2011/12/can-tides-turn-the-tide/">Tidal Power</a>: Restricted to select coastal locations, tidal will never be a large contributor on the global scale. The resource is intermittent on daily and monthly scales, but in a wholly predictable manner. Extracting tidal energy is not terribly hard&mdash;sharing technology with similarly efficient hydroelectric installations&mdash;and has been demonstrated in a number of locations around the world. It&rsquo;s another electricity technique, with no direct offering of heat or transportation. No unusual level of societal objection exists, to my knowledge, but it&rsquo;s not something you will erect in your backyard and expect to get much out of it.</p>
<p><a href="http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2012/01/nuclear-options/">Conventional Fission</a>: Using conventional uranium reactors and conventional mining practices, nuclear fission does not have the legs for a marathon. On the other hand, it is certainly well-demonstrated, and has no problems with intermittency&mdash;unless we count the fact that it has trouble <em>being</em> intermittent in the face of variable load. Compared to other options, nuclear runs a tad on the high-tech side. By this I mean that design, construction, operation, and emergency mitigation require more brains and sophistication than the average energy producer. Nuclear fission directly produces heat (seldom utilized), and is primarily used to generate electricity via the standard steam-driven heat engine, but offers no direct help on transportation. Acceptance is mixed. Germany plans to phase out its nuclear program even though they are serious about carbon reduction. No new plants have been built in the U.S. for over thirty years in part due to public discomfort. Some of this is irrational fear over mutant three-eyed fish and the like, but some is genuine political difficulty relating to the pesky waste problem that no country has yet solved to satisfaction. Nuclear power is not possible on a personal scale.</p>
<p><a href="http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2012/01/nuclear-options/">Uranium Breeder</a>: Extending nuclear fission to be able to use the 140-times more abundant <sup>238</sup>U (rather than 0.7% <sup>235</sup>U) gives uranium fission the legs to run for at least centuries if not a few millennia, so abundance issues disappear. Breeding has been practiced in military reactors, and indeed some significant fraction of the power in conventional uranium reactors comes from <sup>238</sup>U turned <sup>239</sup>Pu. But no commercial power plants have been built to deliberately access the bulk of uranium, turning it into plutonium at scale for the purpose of power production. Public acceptance of breeders will face even stiffer hurdles because plutonium is more easily separated into bomb material than is <sup>235</sup>U, and the trans-uranic radioactive waste from this option is nastier than for the conventional cousin.</p>
<p><a href="http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2012/01/nuclear-options/">Thorium Breeder</a>: Thorium is more abundant than uranium, and only comes in one flavor naturally, so that abundance is not an issue. Like all reactors, thorium reactors fall into the high-tech camp, and include new challenges (e.g., liquid sodium) that conventional reactors have not faced. There have been a few instances of small-scale demonstration, but nothing in the commercial realm, so that we&rsquo;re probably a few decades away from being able to bring thorium online. Public reaction will be likely be similar to that for conventional nuclear: not a show stopper, but some resistance on similar grounds. It is not clear whether the newfangled aspect of thorium will be greeted with suspicion or with an embrace. Though also a breeding technology (making fissile <sup>233</sup>U from <sup>232</sup>Th), the proliferation aspect is severely diminished for thorium due to highly radioactive <sup>232</sup>U by-product and virtually no easily separable plutonium. Of the future nuclear prospects, I am most optimistic about this one&mdash;although it&rsquo;s no nirvana to me.</p>
<p><a href="http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2012/01/warm-and-fuzzy-on-geothermal/">Geothermal Heating with Depletion</a>: A vast store of thermal energy sits in the crust, locked in the rock and moving slowly outward. Being the impatient lot that we are, we could drill down and grab the energy out of the rock on our own schedule, effectively mining heat as a one-time resource. In the absence of water flow to convect heat around, dry rock will deplete its heat within 5&ndash;10 meters of the borehole in a matter of a few years, requiring another hole 10 meters away from the first, and so on and so on. I classify this as moderately difficult, requiring a never-ending large-scale drilling operation across the land. The temperatures are pretty marginal for running heat engines to make electricity with any respectable efficiency (especially given so many easier options for electricity), but at least the thermal resource will not suffer intermittency problems during the time the hole is still useful. Given its inconvenience (kilometers of drilling), I do not know if examples abound of people having tried this <em>for the purpose</em> of providing heat in arbitrary (not geologically hot) areas. Public acceptance may be less than lukewarm given the scale of drilling involved, dealing with tailings and possibly groundwater contamination issues on a sizable scale. While such a hole could fit in a backyard, it would be far more practical to use the heat for clusters of buildings rather than for just one&mdash;given the amount of effort that goes into each hole (and considering short-term lifetime of each hole). I gave this technique high marks for efficiency if used for heat, but it would drop to reddish-yellow if we tried to use this resource for electricity.</p>
<p><a href="http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2012/01/warm-and-fuzzy-on-geothermal/">Geothermal Heating, Steady State</a>: If we turn our noses up at depletion-based geothermal heat, steady state offers far less total potential, coming to about 10 TW of flow if summed across all land. And to access temperatures hot enough to be useful for heating purposes, we&rsquo;re talking about boreholes at least 1 km deep. It is tremendously challenging to cover any significant fraction of land area with thermal collectors 1 km deep. So I am probably being too generous to color this one yellow for the abundance factor. That&rsquo;s okay, because I&rsquo;m hitting it hard enough on the other counts. To gather enough steady-flow heat to provide for a normal U.S. home&rsquo;s heat, the collection network would have to span a square 200 m on a side at depth, which seems nightmarish to me. But at least depletion would not be an issue in this circumstance. Otherwise, this category shares similar markings and rationale as the depletion scenario.</p>
<p><a href="http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2011/11/the-biofuel-grind/">Biofuels from Crops</a>: We&rsquo;ve seen that corn ethanol is a loser of a scheme on energy grounds, although sugar cane and vegetable oils fare better. But these compete with food production and arable land availability, so biofuels from crops can only graduate from &ldquo;niche&rdquo; to &ldquo;potent&rdquo; in the context of plant waste or cellulosic conversion. I have thus split the abundance and demonstration in two: food crop energy is demonstrated but severely constrained in scale. Celluosic matter becomes a potent source, but undemonstrated (perhaps this should even be red). I do not label the prospect as an easy one, because growing and harvesting annual crops on a relevant scale constitutes a massive, perpetual job. If exploiting fossil fuels is akin to spending our inheritance, growing and harvesting our energy on an annual basis is like getting a real job&mdash;a real <em>hard</em> job. The main benefit of biofuels from crops is that we get a liquid fuel out of it&mdash;so hard to come by via other alternatives. Public acceptance hinges on competition with food or just land in general. Scoring only about 1% efficient at raking in solar energy, this option requires commandeering massive tracts of land. A small-time farmer may make useful amounts of fuel for themselves in their back &ldquo;yard,&rdquo; if refining does not create a bottleneck.</p>
<p><a href="http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2012/01/energy-from-the-sea/">Ocean Thermal</a>: The ocean thermal resource uses the 20&ndash;30&deg;C temperature difference between the deep ocean (a few hundred meters down) and its surface to drive a ridiculously low-efficiency heat engine. The heat content is not useful for warming any home (it&rsquo;s not hot). But all the same, it&rsquo;s a vast resource due to the sheer area of the solar collector. Large plants out at sea will be difficult to access and maintain, and transmitting power to land is no picnic either. The resource suffers seasonal intermittency at mid-latitudes, but let&rsquo;s imagine putting these things all in the tropics to get around this. Sound hard, you say? Well yeah! That&rsquo;s part of what makes ocean thermal difficult! No relevant/commercial scale demonstration exists. Like so many others, this is electricity only (and this time, far from demand). Probably nobody cares what we put to sea: out of sight, out of mind. Ocean thermal is not a backyard solution!</p>
<p><a href="http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2012/01/energy-from-the-sea/">Ocean Currents</a>: Large-scale oceanic currents are slower than wind by about a factor of ten, giving a kilogram of current 1000 times less power than a kilogram of wind. Water density makes up the difference to make ocean current comparable to wind in terms of power per rotor area. Not all the ocean has currents as high as 1 m/s, so I put the total abundance in the same category as wind. Maybe accessing a thicker column of water than we can for wind should bump ocean currents up a bit, but the currents are relatively confined to surfaces. But why dunk a windmill underwater where it&rsquo;s far from demand and difficult to access and maintain, when a comparable power can be had in dry air? So I classify this as difficult. On the plus side, the current should be rock solid, eliminating intermittency worries, unlike wind. Still, not one bit of our electricity mix comes from ocean currents at present, so it cannot be said to have been meaningfully demonstrated. For the remaining categories: it&rsquo;s electricity only; who cares what&rsquo;s underwater; and no backyard opportunity.</p>
<p><a href="http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2012/01/energy-from-the-sea/">Ocean Waves</a>: While they seem strong and ever-present, waves are a linear-collection phenomenon, and not an areal phenomenon. So there really isn&rsquo;t that much arriving at shores all around the world (a few TW at best). It&rsquo;s not particularly difficult to turn wave motion into useful electricity at high efficiency, and the proximity to land will make access, maintenance, and transmission far less worrisome than for the previous two cases. There <em>will</em> be some intermittency&mdash;largely seasonal&mdash; as storms and lulls come and go. I&rsquo;ve seen a diverse array of prototype concepts, and a few are being tested at commercial scale. So this is further along then the previous two oceanic sources, but not so much as to get the green light. There will be moderate push-back from people whose ocean views are spoiled, or who benefit from natural wave energy hitting the coast. There are no waves in my backyard, and I hope to keep it this way!</p>
<p><a href="http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2012/01/nuclear-fusion/">D-T Fusion</a>: The easier of the two fusion options, involving deuterium and tritium, represents a longstanding goal under active development for the last 60 years. The well-funded international effort, ITER, plans to accomplish a 480 second pulse of 500 MW power by 2026. This defines the pinnacle of <strong>hard</strong>. Fusion brings with it numerous advantages: enormous power density; moderate radioactive waste products (an advantage?!); abundant deuterium (though tritium is zilch); and surplus helium to liven up children&rsquo;s parties. Fusion would have no intermittency issues, can directly produce heat (and derivative electricity), but like the others does not directly address transportation. The non-existent tritium can be knocked out of lithium with neutrons, and even through we are not awash in lithium, we have enough to last many thousands of years. We might expect some public opposition to D-T fusion due to the necessary neutron flux and associated radioactivity. Fusion is the highest-tech energy we can envision at present, requiring a team of well-educated scientists/technicians to run&mdash;meaning don&rsquo;t plan on building one in your backyard, unless you can afford to have some staff PhDs on hand.</p>
<p><a href="http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2012/01/nuclear-fusion/">D-D Fusion</a>: Replacing tritium with deuterium means abundance of materials is no concern whatsoever for many billions of years. As a trade, it&rsquo;s substantially harder than D-T fusion (or we would not even consider D-T). D-D fusion requires higher temperatures, making confinement that much more difficult. It is for this reason that I gave D-D fusion a &minus;2 score for difficulty. It&rsquo;s not something we should rely upon to get us out of the impending energy pinch, which is my primary motivation.</p>
<h3>End of an Era</h3>
<p>Not only does this conclude the end of the phase on Do the Math where we evaluate the quantitative and qualitative benefits and challenges of alternatives to fossil fuels, it also points to the fact that we face the end of a golden era of energy. Sure, we managed to make scientific and cultural progress based on energy from animals, slaves, and firewood prior to discovering the fossil fuels. But it was in unlocking our one-time inheritance that we really came into our own. Soon, we will see a yearly decrease in our trust fund dividend, forcing us to either adapt to less or try to fill the gap with replacements. What this post and the series preceding it demonstrates is that we do not have a delightful menu from which to select our future. Most of the options leave a bad taste of one form or the other.</p>
<p>When I first approached the subject of energy in our society, I expected to develop a picture in my mind of our grandiose future, full of alternative energy sources like solar, wind, nuclear, biofuels, geothermal, tidal, etc. What I got instead was something like this matrix: full of inadequacies, difficulties, and show-stoppers. Our success at managing the transition away from fossil fuels while maintaining our current standard of living is far from guaranteed. If such success is our goal, we should realize the scale of the challenge and buckle down now while we still have the resources to develop a costly new infrastructure. Otherwise we get behind the curve, possibly facing unfamiliar chaos, loss of economic confidence, resource wars, and the unforgiving <a href="http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2011/10/the-energy-trap/" title="Do the Math: The Energy Trap">Energy Trap</a>. The other controlled option is to deliberately adjust our lives to require fewer resources, preferably abandoning the growth paradigm at the same time. Can we manage a calm, orderly exit from the building? In either case, the first step is to agree that the building is in trouble. Techno-optimism keeps us from even agreeing on <em>that</em>.</p>
</div><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/presenting-the-alternative-energy-matrix-2012-2#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/10-energy-sources-that-will-keep-the-world-from-melting-down-2012-110 Innovative Energy Sources To Help Break Our Fossil Fuel Addiction http://www.businessinsider.com/10-energy-sources-that-will-keep-the-world-from-melting-down-2012-1
Thu, 02 Feb 2012 21:10:00 -0500Dina Spector
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/4cae781c7f8b9a9665f10300-400-325/wind-turbine.jpg" border="0" alt="Wind Turbine" width="400" height="325" /></p><p></p>
<p><em>This editorial is part of our GREAT DEBATE feature '<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/the-great-debate-environment-2012-2">What Resource Do We Most Need For Our Future?</a>'</em></p>
<p><em></em>The Deepwater Horizon disaster &mdash; which spilled an estimated <a href="http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/science.1195840">4.4 million gallons </a>of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico over the 5-month long ordeal &mdash; is a tragic and visible reminder of our nation's toxic love affair with petroleum-based fuel.&nbsp;</p>
<p>According to <a href="http://205.254.135.7/energy_in_brief/role_coal_us.cfm">The U.S Energy Administration</a>, oil supplies close to 40 percent of our total energy demands, while coal provides 23 percent and natural gas supplies 22 percent.</p>
<p>But America's growing thirst for the black goo is expensive. We spend more than <a href="vhttp://www.nrdc.org/air/transportation/aoilpolicy2.asp">$13 million per hour</a> (that's $200,000 per minute) on foreign oil, based on estimates published by the Natural Resource Defense Council.</p>
<p>And then there's global climate change.</p>
<p>The best scientific evidence shows that global climate change is caused by burning fossil fuels (oil, coal, and natural gas), which emit carbon dioxide (greenhouse gases) into the atmosphere. The carbon gases act like a bubble around the Earth, trapping heat in, and in turn, causing temperatures to rise on the planet's surface. This phenomenon can be observed through shrinking glaciers, thawing of permafrost, rising sea levels, and lengthening of growing seasons.</p>
<p>It's not all bleak, however.</p>
<p>Over the last five years, countries around the world, including the United States, Spain, Italy, Germany, the Netherlands, and China have been investing in clean and renewable energies in an effort to lower carbon emissions and transition to a more sustainable power source.</p>
<p>Renewable energy is energy that comes from natural resources such as sunlight, wind, tides, and geothermal heat. Unlike oil, these energy sources are in endless supply (although highly unpredictable) and carbon-neutral.&nbsp;</p>
<p>See what happens when human-engineering teams up with Mother Nature to produce some of the most innovative renewable energy plants.&nbsp;</p><h3>Wave Snakes use the natural up-and-down motion of waves to generate electricity </h3>
<img src="http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/4f285e0c6bb3f76c48000004-400-300/wave-snakes-use-the-natural-up-and-down-motion-of-waves-to-generate-electricity.jpg" alt="" />
<p><p><strong>Location: </strong>Portugal</p>
<p>The 460-foot long, British-made floating tubes represent the world's first commercial-scale wave-power stations.</p>
<p>The snake-like power farms, which were first launched off the northern coast of Portugal in 2008 from the town of Agu&ccedil;adoura, are an original concept in clean energy design.</p>
<p>Using the natural up-and-down motion of waves, the stations are able to convert enough electricity to <a href="http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17090-sea-snake-generates-electricity-with-every-wave.html">power more than 1,000 homes</a>.</p></p>
<br/><br/><h3>The Wind Blimp is equipped with spinning blades to catch wind and generate energy</h3>
<img src="http://static6.businessinsider.com/image/4cace7357f8b9a8a78360000-400-300/the-wind-blimp-is-equipped-with-spinning-blades-to-catch-wind-and-generate-energy.jpg" alt="" />
<p><p><a href="http://www.magenn.com/">Magenn Power Inc.</a> developed its first wind blimp prototype in 2008. The MARS (Magenn Air Rotor System) is essentially an extremely lightweight wind turbine that is anchored to the ground by a tether. Helium is used to lift the blimp, which is equipped with spinning blades to catch wind, generating energy. The electricity is then transferred by the tether to either a power grid or batteries.</p>
<p>MARS has several advantages over other wind systems due to its size, weight, and the ability to operate in very light wind speeds. The blimp is transportable, easily deployed, and well-suited for off-site or remote locations. The floating wind turbine also has the potential to produce electricity at <a href="http://www.magenn.com/products.php">under $.20 per kWh versus $.50 cents to $.99 cents per kWh for diesel</a>.</p></p>
<br/><br/><h3>Archimede is the first solar power plant to use molten salts as a heat transfer fluid to store energy from the sun</h3>
<img src="http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/4f285d1c69bedd194600002c-400-300/archimede-is-the-first-solar-power-plant-to-use-molten-salts-as-a-heat-transfer-fluid-to-store-energy-from-the-sun.jpg" alt="" />
<p><p><strong>Location:</strong> Syracuse, Sicily.</p>
<p>On July 14, 2010, Italian utility Enel unveiled "Archimede," the world's first solar power plant to use molten salts as a heat transfer fluid. The system contains 30,000 square meters (320,000 square feet) <a href="http://www.physorg.com/news198345931.html"> of parabolic mirrors that concentrate solar rays onto 5,400 meters</a> of high heat-resistant pipes that carry the fluid molten salt. The fluid is then collected in special tanks and used to produce steam, which eventually contributes to electricity generation.</p>
<p>The salts&mdash;a mixture of sodium and potassium nitrate&mdash;are an extremely efficient heat transfer mechanism. Unlike synthetic oils used in traditional concentrating solar plants, molten salt can work at much higher temperatures (up to 550&deg;C instead of 390&deg;C). The salts store enough energy to keep the plant generating power at night or on cloudy days, which is a common limitation of many renewable energy sources.</p></p>
<br/><br/><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/10-energy-sources-that-will-keep-the-world-from-melting-down-2012-1#this-is-the-worlds-largest-biomass-power-plant-running-solely-on-chicken-poo-4">See the rest of the story at Business Insider</a> http://www.businessinsider.com/this-amazing-boat-only-uses-the-water-it-floats-on-as-fuel-2011-12This Amazing Boat Only Uses The Water It Floats On As Fuelhttp://www.businessinsider.com/this-amazing-boat-only-uses-the-water-it-floats-on-as-fuel-2011-12
Wed, 14 Dec 2011 18:14:00 -0500Travis Okulski
<p>In the crystal waters of the Caribbean, it is atrocious to see the sheer amount of fuel pouring out of boat engines into the ocean.</p>
<p>French company <strong>Luxury</strong> seems to have found the ultimate solution.</p>
<p>According to <em>Gizmag</em><em></em>, <a href="http://www.gizmag.com/mig-675-hydrogen-boat/20826/">Luxury's MIG 675 is 22 feet long, goes 70 miles per hour, and uses no fuel. This boat is powered by hydrogen.</a></p>
<p>But what is even more impressive is that instead of storing the hydrogen on board, the boat actually pulls it out of the water while its moving. The 500 horsepower supercharged engine lets the MIG 675 reach a top speed of 70 miles per hour.</p>
<p>And even all of the onboard electrics are powered by the hydrogen generator, which means that the only emission produced is water.</p>
<p>Amazing engineering.</p>
<p>But it comes at a price: the MIG 675 costs $330,000. Hopefully, over time the tech will trickle down to less expensive boats meaning a cleaner future for us all.</p>
<p>Now check out this video of it in action (<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&amp;v=lLQx70pL4zk">YouTube</a> via <a href="http://www.gizmag.com/mig-675-hydrogen-boat/20826/">Gizmag</a>):</p>
<p><iframe width="618" height="373" frameborder="0" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/lLQx70pL4zk"></iframe></p>
<h2><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/yacht-of-the-week-mm-for-sale-2011-12#from-the-exterior-mm-looks-as-sleek-as-anything-on-the-water-1">Now take a look at the yacht of the week &gt;</a></h2><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/this-amazing-boat-only-uses-the-water-it-floats-on-as-fuel-2011-12#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/maple-energy-ceo-predicts-peru-ethanol-operations-will-be-a-game-changer-2011-1Maple Energy CEO Predicts Peru Ethanol Operations Will Be A Game Changer (MPLE, GOO, PMG, GTL, CEB)http://www.businessinsider.com/maple-energy-ceo-predicts-peru-ethanol-operations-will-be-a-game-changer-2011-1
Thu, 13 Jan 2011 17:53:31 -0500Stockopedia
<p>Later this year, the arid coastline of north-west Peru will set the scene for the start of an ethanol production project that could transform the profitability of its AIM-listed operator. For integrated energy group <a href="http://www.stockopedia.co.uk/share-prices/maple-energy-LON:MPLE/">Maple Energy</a> (LON:MPLE), several years of major engineering work will come to an end and ethanol will begin flowing from what promises to be one of the lowest cost production operations of its type in the world.</p>
<p>Maple came to AIM in July 2007 with a portfolio of Peruvian oil and gas exploration, production and processing assets, together with plans to develop its new ethanol project. Since then, the $254m project has risen in stature and is now fully funded to completion in the second half of this year. The economics of the new facility are impressive, not least because Peru&rsquo;s coastline offers ideal conditions to grow the most efficient feedstock for ethanol production &ndash; sugar cane. Starting on just over half of a land bank totaling 13,500 hectares, Maple has designed an environmentally conscious operation that is expected to produce up to 35m gallons of ethanol per year for export, together with 37 MW of electricity from a co-generation power plant.</p>
<p>In the six months to June 30, 2010, Maple delivered revenues of US$35.0m, up from US$28.3m year-on-year, with pre-tax profits coming in at US$0.1m against a loss of US$15.5m. Ebitda rose to US$5.3m from US$2.4m. Over the last 12 months, the <a href="http://www.stockopedia.co.uk/share-prices/maple-energy-LON:MPLE/">Maple Energy share price</a>&nbsp;on AIM (they also trade in Lima) has fallen from a high of 84.75 in January 2010 to a low of 41p last August and are currently trading at 69.5p. Maple&rsquo;s peers include AIM-listed <a href="http://www.stockopedia.co.uk/share-prices/gold-oil-LON:GOO/">Gold Oil</a> (LON:GOO) and Toronto listed Petrominerales (TSX: PMG), both of which have oil assets in Peru. Meanwhile, AIM groups <a href="http://www.stockopedia.co.uk/share-prices/gtl-resources-LON:GTL/">Gtl Resources</a> (LON:GTL) and <a href="http://www.stockopedia.co.uk/share-prices/clean-energy-brazil-LON:CEB/">Clean Energy Brazil</a> (LON:CEB) have ethanol interests in California and Brazil respectively.</p>
<p>Production will mark a major turning point for Maple, which last year sold its 14.3% stake in its first major project in the country &ndash; the Aguaytia gas and electric power project &ndash; for $28m to Duke Energy. That deal streamlined its portfolio down to a modest oil production arm, a refining and marketing business based from the Pucallpa refinery and a chance shale gas discovery on the Santa Rosa prospect in Block 31-E (the company had originally be drilling for oil). For now, all eyes are on the start of ethanol production &ndash; something that Maple&rsquo;s chief executive, Rex Canon believes will have a major impact on the company&rsquo;s future.</p>
<p><strong>Rex, you have been with Maple Energy since the late 1980s. Tell me about the business and your strategy in Peru?</strong></p>
<p>We are essentially an independent energy company focused on Peru. We&rsquo;ve got several things going on, we&rsquo;ve got a couple of different business units, one is an ethanol business unit and the other one is in the hydrocarbon space. The biggest project we&rsquo;re doing at the moment is our ethanol project up on the north coast of Peru.</p>
<p>Before we were in Peru we had a predecessor company, which was in the US and which was also under the Maple name, and we were in the oil and gas production business, we operated at one time over 500 wells. We were also in what is called the natural gas gathering and processing business, which means we were building and operating natural gas pipeline systems and gathering systems as well as processing plants which extracted gas liquids from gas production. We actually came down to Peru in the mid 1990s to look at opportunities. The political landscape was changing quite a bit in Peru at the time and they were just starting to discuss the privatization of the oil and gas sector and the electricity sector. So we really came down here early on and the bottom line is we ended up signing some agreements with the government which got us into both the oil and gas business here in Peru and also into the power business. Our first big project at that time was to develop a $273m fully integrated natural gas and electric power business, which included developing the first gas field to be commercialized in Peru ever &ndash; that was Aguaytia.</p>
<p><strong>What triggered the move from Aguaytia into the ethanol space?</strong></p>
<p>Aguaytia was a project conceived by Maple and it was our team that was responsible for developing it, constructing it and putting it into operation. That was our first big project in Peru. We have since done other things in the oil and gas sector and really got interested in ethanol in the last few years. What got us interested is that we have a production, refining and marketing business in the central jungle of Peru and so we were following ethanol because there are mandates all over the world to mix ethanol with motor gasoline. So we were following that and just by being on the ground here in Peru we already knew the best feed stock for producing fuel grade ethanol was sugar cane, in terms of cost efficiency and energy efficiency. We also knew that Peru was arguably the best place in the world to grow sugar cane in terms of yields. So that is what started getting us focused on that opportunity and we now actually have a project that is under construction, that is fully integrated and we expect it to go into commercial operation in the second half of this year.</p>
<p><strong>This is a very substantial project in terms of the infrastructure and the engineering project management work. How challenging is it to put something like this together?</strong></p>
<p>Well it is challenging but in terms of doing large scale greenfield projects in Peru, we&rsquo;ve already done that before with the Aguaytia project. The types of issues you face are similar in other greenfield projects you might do here, particularly vertically integrated projects. In our particular case I think a lot of the challenges have been overcome in the sense that we have got all the key permitting in place and we have got the financing in place. In terms of construction we are substantially into the construction and a very significant part of the work that remains to be done is being done under contracts that, in most cases, are fixed price and they&rsquo;re very solid project financed style contracts. So there were certainly a lot of challenges but we have overcome most of those and we are in position to be in commercial operation in the second half of next year.</p>
<p><strong>How complex has it been to negotiate this project with the Peruvian authorities?</strong></p>
<p>Well it&rsquo;s easy from the standpoint that, as far as the concept goes, it is a new industry really for Peru. There&rsquo;s actually one other project that&rsquo;s recently gone into operation, we&rsquo;ll be the second one, but essentially this is a new industry as far as ethanol is concerned. Peru has been in the business of producing sugar cane for a long time but as far as the concept of producing fuel grade ethanol this is something that is really more recent. So it is essentially a new industry and if you look at our project specifically, it is a greenfield project and we&rsquo;re creating jobs. During the operation phase we&rsquo;ll have in the range of 500 to 600 permanent employees, but if you look at the indirect employment created through other service providers, it is several multiples of that number. So we&rsquo;re creating jobs, it&rsquo;s a new industry and it is something that we have had a lot of support for, not just from the federal government and regional government but also from the local communities.</p>
<p><strong>What are your views on the market potential for ethanol and biofuel, both domestically in Peru and around the world? Will you be exporting the ethanol or processing it through your own refinery?</strong></p>
<p>We are not really intending to produce this for our refinery, this is principally an export driven business. There is a mandate for ethanol in Peru; the requirement here is that 7.8% of motor gasoline is to be ethanol. Now that particular mandate is being rolled out right now so it is already in effect in some parts of Peru but it is going to take another year or so to roll that out nationwide. But even once that is rolled out nationally the demand in Peru is something in the range of around 25 million gallons or so per year. Our production is expected to exceed that and, as I said, there&rsquo;s another project already in operation in Peru and I expect that there&rsquo;ll be other projects. So the reality is that while we may be selling some in the local market this is principally an export driven business.</p>
<p>What is somewhat unique about what we are doing is that we will be producing a very high quality product in terms of technical specifications but we&rsquo;ll also be meeting all the sustainability requirements, let&rsquo;s say, for the European market. If you look at what we&rsquo;re doing, we are using the most efficient feed stock, sugar cane, we are essentially converting arid lands to production; there is nothing that has been cultivated on a commercial basis out there before. If you&rsquo;ve seen the coast of Peru it is really an arid coast, and we are using &lsquo;drip irrigation&rsquo; so there is no issue about competition for water. I would argue that it is about as green as you can get in terms of the environment.</p>
<p><strong>Once production is under way what are your longer-term plans for that side of the business?</strong></p>
<p>I think the first step for us is that we actually own 13,500 hectares and we also have a substantial amount of water rights. Our plan in the first phase is to develop 7,800 hectares of cane plantation, and that is underway right now, and in the next phase we will increase that total plantation up to about 10,000 hectares. Then we are actively looking for other opportunities in both the river basin area we are in as well as other areas in Peru for other potential projects in the sector. So obviously this is a business in which our intention is to expand, at least for the moment, in Peru.</p>
<p><strong>What sort of impact will this project have on your financial performance in the years to come?</strong></p>
<p>Well it is substantial if you think about our business. We do have a production, refining and marketing business that is producing revenues and it is a nice business for us because it has got a stable source of cash flow. But once we go into operation on our ethanol project the top line revenues from that business are expected to exceed what we are doing in terms of the oil and gas business.</p>
<p><strong>On the oil and gas side, tell me about what&rsquo;s going on there. What are your plans for that side of the business?</strong></p>
<p>Well on that side of the business our current oil production is in the range of about 500 barrels a day, which is high quality crude oil that we&rsquo;re producing from fields that we operate and have 100% interest in. We do continue to do some work in those fields. We own some of our own drilling rigs and work-over equipment out there and so we have an ongoing program to maximize and optimize what we can get out of those fields. In addition to that we purchase natural gasolines from Aguaytia Energy, which was the business that we developed but later sold, on a long term basis and that feed stock goes into our refining operation.</p>
<p>I think the short story is that integrated business of production, refining and marketing is really just something that we are not spending much capital on at the moment, we are just trying to optimize what we can out of the existing business. There is an opportunity in the hydrocarbon business, which is separate, and that is the shale gas opportunity. That is something that requires some further evaluation to determine what happens next. As you may know we were drilling an oil prospect in the area and while we didn&rsquo;t find oil we did drill into a fairly significant deposit of shale gas. At this stage it needs further evaluation and further work to determine what the possibilities are with that.</p>
<p><strong>Finally, you brought Maple Energy to London&rsquo;s AIM market in July 2007. Tell me why you think the company should be a stock worth watching for retail investors?</strong></p>
<p>I think the key here is to look at what you think the company may be worth and what it should be worth. The big events coming up, I think this year certainly, will be going into commercial operation on the ethanol business. The key on the ethanol business is that we expect to be among the low cost producers worldwide in terms of ethanol. We expect our direct production cost to be in the range of 75 cents per gallon. If you consider the administrative cost on top of that of about 14 cents a gallon and then you consider our transportation, storage and marketing estimates, you get to an all in projected cost of about $1.28 per gallon. That is really a delivered cost at Rotterdam, which is currently what we are expecting our target market point to be. If you look at the prices of ethanol in that market right now they are in the range of $3 to $3.25 per gallon. Obviously ethanol is a commodity and the price varies every day but it is in that kind of range so you can see there is quite a bit of spread there. If you just worked the numbers, and considering our expected production, you can see there is a lot of cash flow that we expect to come out of that business once we go into commercial operation. So I think the big changing point is going to be when we do go into commercial operation and I think right now that is why there is an opportunity.</p>
<p><strong>Thank you very much for your time.</strong></p>
<p>Thank you.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.stockopedia.co.uk/content/sweet-success-stockopedia-speaks-to-rex-canon-of-maple-energy-52482/?utm_source=sendgrid.com&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_campaign=Site%20Features">This post originally appeared at Stockopedia.co.uk &gt;</a></p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/maple-energy-ceo-predicts-peru-ethanol-operations-will-be-a-game-changer-2011-1#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/eagles-plan-to-make-lincoln-financial-field-the-worlds-greenest-stadium-2010-11Eagles Plan To Make Lincoln Financial Field The World's Greenest Stadiumhttp://www.businessinsider.com/eagles-plan-to-make-lincoln-financial-field-the-worlds-greenest-stadium-2010-11
Thu, 18 Nov 2010 11:46:52 -0500Kevin Baumer
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/4ce5497cccd1d50a22140000/lincoln-financial-field-nfl.jpg" border="0" alt="Lincoln Financial Field NFL" /></p><p>If everything goes right, the Philadelphia Eagles say <a href="http://www.philly.com/inquirer/front_page/20101118_Eagles_aim_to_turn_Lincoln_Financial_Field_into_world_s_greenest_stadium.html?page=1&amp;c=y">they'll have the greenest stadium in the world by the 2011 opener</a>.</p>
<p>The Eagles plan to add 100 'spiral-shaped wind turbines' along the top of the stadium, 2,500 solar panels, and a cogeneration power plant that can run on alternative fuel such as natural gas. The three new additions will be enough to fully power Lincoln Financial Field by themselves.</p>
<p>By finding alternative energy sources the team anticipates saving $60 million over the next 20 years.&nbsp;</p>
<p><a href="http://www.philly.com/inquirer/front_page/20101118_Eagles_aim_to_turn_Lincoln_Financial_Field_into_world_s_greenest_stadium.html?page=1&amp;c=y">Click here to read the full story from <em>The Philadelphia Inquirer</em> &gt;</a></p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/eagles-plan-to-make-lincoln-financial-field-the-worlds-greenest-stadium-2010-11#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/the-most-amazing-alternative-energy-plants-2010-1010 Bizarre Energy Sources That Will Keep The World From Melting Downhttp://www.businessinsider.com/the-most-amazing-alternative-energy-plants-2010-10
Mon, 11 Oct 2010 12:33:00 -0400Dina Spector
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/4ae9e5340000000000fc86e2/apocalypse-statue-of-liberty.jpg" border="0" alt="apocalypse statue of liberty" /></p><p>The Deepwater Horizon disaster &mdash; which spilled an estimated <a href="http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/science.1195840">4.4 million gallons </a>of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico over the 5-month long ordeal &mdash; is a tragic and visible reminder of our nation's toxic love affair with petroleum-based fuel.&nbsp;</p>
<p>According to the <a href="http://www.energy.gov/energysources/oil.htm">U.S Department of Energy</a>, oil supplies more than 40 percent of our total energy demands and more than 99 percent of the fuel we use in our cars and trucks.</p>
<p>But America's growing thirst for the black goo comes at a hefty cost to both our economy and environment. We spend more than $13 million per hour (that's $200,000 per minute) on foreign oil, based on estimates published by the <a href="http://www.nrdc.org/air/transportation/aoilpolicy2.asp">Natural Resource Defense Council</a>.</p>
<p>And then there's the big, pink elephant in the room (or is it the giant drowning polar bear?) &mdash; Global Climate Change.</p>
<p>The best scientific evidence shows that global climate change is caused by burning fossil fuels (oil, coal, and natural gas), which emit carbon dioxide (greenhouse gases) into the atmosphere. The carbon gases act like a bubble around the Earth, trapping heat in, and in turn, causing temperatures to rise on the planet's surface. This phenomenon can be observed through shrinking glaciers, thawing of permafrost, rising sea levels, lengthening of growing seasons, and yes &mdash; growing numbers of dead polar bears.&nbsp;</p>
<p>It's not all bleak, however.</p>
<p>Over the last five years, countries around the world, including the United States, Spain, Italy, Germany, the Netherlands, and China have been investing in clean and renewable energies in an effort to lower carbon emissions and transition to a more sustainable power source. <em>Renewable energy</em> is energy that that comes from natural resources such as sunlight, wind, tides, and geothermal heat. Unlike oil, these energy sources are in endless supply (although highly unpredictable) and carbon-neutral.&nbsp;</p>
<p>See what happens when human-engineering teams up with Mother Nature to produce some of the most innovative renewable energy plants.&nbsp;</p><h3>Wave Snakes use the natural up-and-down motion of waves to generate electricity </h3>
<img src="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/4cae8e827f8b9a021a0a0c00-400-300/wave-snakes-use-the-natural-up-and-down-motion-of-waves-to-generate-electricity.jpg" alt="" />
<p><p><strong>Location: </strong>Portugal</p>
<p>The 460-foot long, British-made floating tubes represent the world's first commercial-scale wave-power stations.</p>
<p>The snake-like power farms, which were first launched off the northern coast of Portugal in 2008 from the town of Agu&ccedil;adoura, are an original concept in clean energy design.</p>
<p>Using the natural up-and-down motion of waves, <strong>the stations are able to convert enough electricity to power more than 1,000 homes.</strong></p></p>
<br/><br/><h3>The Wind Blimp is equipped with spinning blades to catch wind and generate energy</h3>
<img src="http://static6.businessinsider.com/image/4cace7357f8b9a8a78360000-400-300/the-wind-blimp-is-equipped-with-spinning-blades-to-catch-wind-and-generate-energy.jpg" alt="" />
<p><p><a href="http://www.magenn.com/">Magenn Power Inc.</a> developed its first wind blimp prototype in 2008. The MARS (Magenn Air Rotor System) is essentially an extremely lightweight wind turbine that is anchored to the ground by a tether. Helium is used to lift the blimp, which is equipped with spinning blades to catch wind, generating energy. The electricity is then transferred by the tether to either a power grid or batteries.</p>
<p>MARS has several advantages over other wind systems due to its size, weight, and the ability to operate in very light wind speeds. The blimp is transportable, easily deployed, and well-suited for off-site or remote locations. The floating wind turbine also has the potential to produce electricity at <strong><a href="http://www.magenn.com/products.php">under $.20 per kWh versus $.50 cents to $.99 cents per kWh for diesel</a>.</strong></p></p>
<br/><br/><h3>Archimede is the first solar power plant to use molten salts as a heat transfer fluid to store energy from the sun</h3>
<img src="http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/4caa38ad7f8b9a4375fb0e00-400-300/archimede-is-the-first-solar-power-plant-to-use-molten-salts-as-a-heat-transfer-fluid-to-store-energy-from-the-sun.jpg" alt="" />
<p><p><strong>Location:</strong> Syracuse, Sicily.</p>
<p>On July 14, 2010, Italian utility Enel unveiled "Archimede," the world's first solar power plant to use molten salts as a heat transfer fluid. The system contains <strong>30,000 square meters (320,000 square feet) <a href="http://www.physorg.com/news198345931.html"> of parabolic mirrors that concentrate solar rays onto 5,400 meters</a></strong> <strong>of high heat-resistant pipes that carry the fluid molten salt.</strong> The fluid is then collected in special tanks and used to produce steam, which eventually contributes to electricity generation.</p>
<p>The salts&mdash;a mixture of sodium and potassium nitrate&mdash;are an extremely efficient heat transfer mechanism. Unlike synthetic oils used in traditional concentrating solar plants, molten salt can work at much higher temperatures (up to 550&deg;C instead of 390&deg;C). The salts store enough energy to keep the plant generating power at night or on cloudy days, which is a common limitation of many renewable energy sources.</p></p>
<br/><br/><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/the-most-amazing-alternative-energy-plants-2010-10#this-is-the-worlds-largest-biomass-power-plant-running-solely-on-chicken-poo-4">See the rest of the story at Business Insider</a> http://www.businessinsider.com/burmese-jatropha-planting-is-wasting-valuable-land-2009-3Burmese Jatropha Planting Is Wasting Valuable Landhttp://www.businessinsider.com/burmese-jatropha-planting-is-wasting-valuable-land-2009-3
Fri, 13 Mar 2009 10:10:00 -0400Jay Yarow
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static6.businessinsider.com/~~/f?id=49976a4a796c7a0000c96aff&amp;maxX=400&amp;maxY=300" border="0" alt="jatropha-plant_tbi.jpg" title="jatropha-plant_tbi.jpg" width="400" height="300" /></p><p>The advantage of using jatropha curcas to create biodiesel fuel is that the plant can grow almost anywhere. As a result, land that can be used for growing productive crops that feed people doesn't need to be squandered on something like corn for ethanol. In turn that means food prices don't have to rise to meet industry demand for corn based ethanol.</p>
<p>However, in Burma, the government is forcing its people to grow jatropha at levels that are causing food problems by wasting land on the crop. What's worse, the country doesn't have the infrastructure to convert the nut to oil.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><a href="http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1885050,00.html?xid=rss-world">Time</a>: Each of Burma's states and divisions was ordered to dedicate around 500,000 acres (202,000 hectares) to physic-nut cultivation, pressuring many ordinary citizens into a massive forced-planting campaign, according to human-rights groups. While my friend has enough money to pay for the mandatory seeds, but many other Burmese aren't so lucky. Those who refuse to farm physic nut face possible jail time. By the end of 2008, the nation's top brass aimed to have 8 million acres (3.24 million hectares) of jatropha scattered across Burma, some in vast plantations run by foreign companies, others wedged into home gardens or between shacks.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">Puzzlingly, however, the junta's planting directive has not been matched by scant infrastructure to turn those acres into energy, like collection mechanisms, processing plants, distribution systems. My friend dutifully tends his jatropha trees and then watches the seeds fall on the ground and die. In his case, the spindly physic-nut shrubs in his garden are supplanting a fragrant frangipani tree or colorful hibiscus bush. But elsewhere in Burma &mdash; a nation where UNICEF estimates malnutrition afflicts one-third of children &mdash; farmers have had to put aside valuable crop land for a wasted plant.</p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/burmese-jatropha-planting-is-wasting-valuable-land-2009-3#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/verenium-ceo-value-chain-doesnt-exist-for-biofuels-2009-2Verenium CEO: "Value Chain Doesn't Exist" For Biofuels (VRNM)http://www.businessinsider.com/verenium-ceo-value-chain-doesnt-exist-for-biofuels-2009-2
Wed, 25 Feb 2009 09:21:07 -0500Jay Yarow
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static2.businessinsider.com/~~/f?id=499d8a9e796c7a410096eb57&amp;maxX=400&amp;maxY=300" border="0" alt="ethanol-verenium_tbi.jpg" title="ethanol-verenium_tbi.jpg" width="400" height="300" /></p><p>The CEO of cellulosic ethanol maker Verenium, Carlos Riva spoke yesterday to a group of fifty about the challenges facing his company and industry. Verenium <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/bp-sending-mixed-messages-on-biofuel-2009-2">just locked into a deal with BP</a> to make a large scale facility for its ethanol, but Riva warned, "In order to commercialize this technology, you have to think beyond building of the new facility."</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><a href="http://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2009/02/25/4/">Climatewire</a> (sub. req'd): "You really have an entire value chain here that has to be developed that really doesn't exist," he added, warning that failure to prepare for the transition to biofuels could result in a "chaotic, hurried and costly transition more likely to be accompanied by global strife and instability."</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">Among the problems facing Verenium and its partner in the commercialization venture, world oil giant BP PLC, is the huge amount of capital needed for such a project -- estimated to be between $250 million and $300 million -- and the collapse of the debt market.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">The government, Riva stressed, will play a critical part in helping along commercial-scale production of biofuels with the provision of loan guarantees to fund the technology, which are needed to kick-start the industry.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">Verenium faces other challenges, such as the development of crops appropriate to particular regions of the United States and attracting growers and landowners willing to shift to bioenergy crop production.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">There is also a need, Riva said, for innovation in agriculture equipment design and converting cars into flexible fuel vehicles.</p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/verenium-ceo-value-chain-doesnt-exist-for-biofuels-2009-2#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/european-tariffs-are-more-bad-news-for-biofuels-2009-2European Tariffs Are More Bad News For Biofuelshttp://www.businessinsider.com/european-tariffs-are-more-bad-news-for-biofuels-2009-2
Tue, 24 Feb 2009 08:39:00 -0500Jay Yarow
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static2.businessinsider.com/~~/f?id=49887ef0796c7a7400a2c459&amp;maxX=327&amp;maxY=245" border="0" alt="ethanol-plant.jpg" title="ethanol-plant.jpg" width="327" height="245" /></p><p>Somewhere, a strident free marketeer is crying. The heavily subsidized U.S. biofuel industry is coming under attack from protectionist measures in Europe.</p>
<p>The EU intends to slap a tariff on U.S. imports of biofuels because the U.S. biofuel industry is benefitting from a double dip of discounts. The United States heavily subsidizes biofuels, and some European countries give U.S. producers a discount on biofuels sold in their country. This, argues Euro biofuel makers, is unfair and needs to be changed. Our question: If some European countries want to discount the U.S. biofuels, why is the EU going to over-ride them? Confusing.</p>
<p>We're certain <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/joe-weisenthal">some people</a> at <em>The Business Insider</em> would argue that letting some nations over pay for biofuels actually gives some European countries an advantage, based on efficiency, but that's neither here nor there. Possibly in the next four months, the EU will enact a tariff.</p>
<p>Sayeth the <a href="http://www.iht.com/articles/2009/02/23/business/biofuel.4-436100.php">IHT</a>: The EU duties would total about &euro;44 per 100 kilograms, or [$56 per] 220 pounds, of biodiesel, according to the EU diplomats. The diplomats requested anonymity because governments still needed to be formally consulted on the&nbsp;decision.</p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/european-tariffs-are-more-bad-news-for-biofuels-2009-2#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p>